My shabby little hall tree

Wrong kind of hall tree. I literally mean a little tree for my hallway. :)

Kara made a couple (she wrote the tutorial so give her site a visit) and I had this old, beat up cone in my craft supplies so I decided to go for it.

I decided I wanted a star so I freehand drew one on the back of a pudding box headed for recycling. You can see I'm such an artist that I got it perfect on the first try. ;) Also notice I made a little "stem" for it to stick into the top of the cone.

Cut out and make sure it fits.

Pick out what fabric you want, trace and cover. I only did one side of the star (call me lazy?) but if you have a freehand star and want to cover both sides be sure to flip your template around to make sure you have fabric that will fit to each side.

I had originally thought about making just a jute tree and then decided to go with the shabby fabric tree but decided to give it a jute base to look something like a tree trunk.

Now for the main course! I ripped my fabric strips to give them some nice texture (as per Kara's tutorial). If you've never ripped fabric strips before it is easy AND fun. Cut a small start,

then holding the large part of the fabric stationary, grip the "strip" side and pretend you're the Incredible Hulk - I was using muslin so it tore very easily.

Then I did a little factory set up and made plenty of loops to glue around.

Make sure your strips are going in a straight line around the circle. Maybe drawing a guide mark would help but I found myself going quite crooked a few times.

All finished and looking shabby cute in my entry sitting atop my garage sale candle holder.

I also tried another thing I've been seeing around - the book page wreath. Now I am a bibliophile through and through so to tear up a book and use it this way you have to know I chose something no one would ever miss.

I ruffled crepe paper for the center (albeit crookedly!) and added a cardstock circle that I stamped.

Time consuming? Yes. But the cost of the project was so negligible that these would make great gifts!